1.
NFC & RFID
with Android
Tod E. Kurt, ThingM
Where 2.0 2011, Santa Clara, CA

2.
What is this talk?
Why you should care about RFID & NFC
Overview of what RFID & NFC is technically
How Android implements NFC
What Android can and cannot do
Some existing Android apps
Tips on how to add NFC to your Android app
Non-Android NFC hacking

3.
Who is this guy?
@todbot does...
Crystal Monster
BlinkM Smart LEDs
ScrewShield
Spooky Arduino
Wiichuck
adapter

4.
Why Should I Care About RFID?
Exxon Mastercard PayPass Identification
SpeedPass
Financial Transactions
Asset tracking
Access control
SF Muni Clipper pass
Supply chain

5.
Why Should I Care About NFC?
Some of the things NFC promises...
http://www.nfc-forum.org

6.
Also...

7.
Why I like RFID
ThingM: WineM
AFK: SeaWorld in Dubai
ThingM: Ghost Tours at Henry Ford
!

8.
RFID

9.
RFID is Easy
RFID tag – just a serial number, a unique ID
UID 32-bit or 56-bit
Some tags UP TO 4kB! (wow!) of writeable data

10.
Why RFID instead of...
...barcodes
– can have a lot more data, no ugly barcode
...QR codes
– can write data, no camera lag, no ugly qr code
...Bluetooth
– cheaper, low-overhead, easier setup
...WiFi / GPS localization
– cheap, definite, closely-spaced location

11.
What RFID is Not
NOT localization
NOT proximity detection
NOT fast data transfer
NOT secure (for non-smartcard)
Be careful using it for identification, use it instead for fun

12.
How RFID works
“reader” “tag”
expensive ($10) cheap ($0.10)

13.
Passive Tag Internals

14.
Some Interesting RFID Examples

15.
Waterpark ticket
day-pass vs season pass
age-based restrictions
payment of food, beverages, merchandise

16.
Casino Chips Theft Fail
man steals $1.5M in chips,
cashes them in for $0 and jail
“RFID can void the stolen
chips, like a registration
that’s no longer valid,”
Kendall said.
“When we manufacture
RFID-embedded chips and
send them to a casino,
they’re not worth anything
until they register the codes.
Until then, they’re nothing but
freight.”

17.
NFC

18.
NFC: Near Field Communication
web-like semantics for RFID
Built on existing RFID tech
Multi-part, mime-typed, textual data
Devices can have 3 modes:
- tag reader/writer
Nokia 3220 NFC
- tag emulation
- peer-to-peer data transfer
NFC products available since 2005

19.
NFC Technical Architecture
http://www.nfc-forum.org/

20.
NDEF: NFC data exchange format
some example NDEF formats
http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/

21.
Some cool NFC ideas
Tap Your Top10 – Send top 10 list to DJ by tapping phone
HouseMood – Tap your house so it knows your mood
HiRes 4SQ – Precise, hyper-dense checkins with foursquare

22.
NFC Capabilities on Android
Currently available Android NFC phones: Google Nexus S
Use Android 2.3.3 (API Level 10) as the NFC APIs drastically
changed from 2.3.2.
New Intent Filter and TechFilter APIs for registering interest in
types of cards, types of NDEF messages, types of NFC events

23.
What works now on Android?
Tag reader/writer
Tag emulation (of certain NFC NDEF tags)
P2P communication (Android-specific)

24.
What doesn’t work
Tag emulation of Smart Cards
Peer-to-peer with Nokia NFC phones

25.
Nexus S NFC Hardware

26.
Current App Landscape

27.
taglet & AnyTag
“bit.ly for RFID tags”
maps UID –> URL
works with any tag phone can read
but both don’t seem to work on 2.3.3

28.
Tags App
System App
Two functions:
- tag reader
- tag emulator
Makes sharing
contact info &
URLs easy

29.
NFC TagInfo
most useful

30.
NXP TagWriter
lets you format tags for NDEF use

31.
NXP TagWriter

32.
App Demos
Let’s try to show some demos...

33.
Developing NFC on Android
Disclaimer: I’m not a big Android programmer.
Good docs at http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/nfc/
go read them.
Instead, look at the process from a high level
And at the lower-level setup and gotchas

34.
Quick Android SDK Setup Intro
Android apps are written in Java using Eclipse IDE
Install Eclipse (or other favorite IDE)
Download Android SDK
Hook Android SDK up to Eclipse
Tell SDK to download needed extra packages
Then you can start a new Eclipse Android project

35.
App Activity lifecycle
Apps have at least one Activity
Activities triggered from system
events, “intents”
Activities are paused & resumed
by Android system

36.
Main Steps to add NFC
■ Edit app’s AndroidManifest.xml, set:
■ Minimum SDK version
■ Hardware permissions
■ Intent filters
■ Two ways to work:
■ Intent Dispatch – run your Activity on tag presence
■ Foreground Dispatch – intercept tag intents

37.
Permissions in Manifest
Set SDK version to get to NFC APIs:
<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="10"/>
Request permission from the user to use NFC hardware:
<uses‐permission android:name="android.permission.NFC">

38.
Intent Filter in Manifest
NFC intent filters tell Android your Activity can handle NFC
And let you control what kind of tags your Activity sees
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.nfc.action.NDEF_DISCOVERED"/>
<data android:mimeType="mime/type" />
</intent-filter>
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.nfc.action.TECH_DISCOVERED"/>
<meta-data android:name="android.nfc.action.TECH_DISCOVERED"
android:resource="@xml/nfc_tech_filter.xml" />
</intent-filter>
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.nfc.action.TAG_DISCOVERED"/>
</intent-filter>

39.
Intent Filter
Can even filter on NFC mime-type
<intent‐filter>
<action android:name="android.nfc.action.NDEF_DISCOVERED"/>
<data android:mimeType="text/x‐vcard"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
</intent‐filter>

40.
TechFilter
Filter for what kind of tag hardware you care about
<resources
xmlns:xliff="urn:oasis:names:tc:xliff:document:1.2">
<tech-list>
<tech>android.nfc.tech.IsoDep</tech>
<tech>android.nfc.tech.NfcA</tech>
<tech>android.nfc.tech.NfcB</tech>
<tech>android.nfc.tech.NfcF</tech>
<tech>android.nfc.tech.NfcV</tech>
<tech>android.nfc.tech.Ndef</tech>
<tech>android.nfc.tech.NdefFormatable</tech>
<tech>android.nfc.tech.MifareClassic</tech>
<tech>android.nfc.tech.MifareUltralight</tech>
</tech-list>
</resources>

41.
Get Tag Data
In onCreate() if using intent filters,
or anywhere using foreground dispatch
Intent intent = getIntent();
NdefMessage[] msgs =
intent.getParcelableArrayExtra(NfcAdapter.EXTRA_NDEF_MESSAGESs);
for (int i = 0; i < msgs.length; i++) {
NdefRecord[] records = msgs[i].getRecords();
}

42.
FakeTagsActivity

43.
Hacking NFC
not on Android
Get a USB or serial reader
Get some tags (SF Muni Clipper, your prox card, etc.)
Get some apps
Hook it up to your PC or Arduino

44.
Touchatag
http://touchatag.com
Inexpensive ($40) USB NFC reader
Comes with 10 read-only 64-byte tags
Works with libnfc

45.
Proxmark
http://www.proxmark.org/
GPL RFID hardware reader
Build it yourself, if you’re
hardcore
Read/emulate any RFID tag
$300

46.
SonMicro RFID
http://sonmicro.com
13.56 MHz RFID reader
Libraries for Processing &
Arduino
Read/write tags
Limited NFC, no emulation
$30
avail from SparkFun

47.
LibNFC
http://www.libnfc.org/
Multi-platform library for NFC exploration
Works with most all NFC/RFID USB readers
Understands most all NFC/RFID tag types
Active developer community

48.
Open NFC
http://www.open-nfc.org/

49.
TagAge.net
Create custom NFC
tags with custom
graphics, all online

50.
Links
http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.3.3.html
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/nfc/index.html
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/nfc/NfcAdapter.html
http://www.rfid-handbook.com/rfid/
http://www.nfc-research.at/
http://www.nfc-forum.org/
http://www.proxmark.org/

51.
Thank You
imagine these guys with NFC tags

52.
Thank You
imagine these guys with NFC tags

53.
Tod E. Kurt
http://thingm.com/
http://todbot.com/blog/